This distinction particularly obtains in performances of black music that fundamentally rely on the antiphonic dynamics between the crowd and musicians, on the expressive release of musical improvisation, and on the signifyin' on other songs and traditions.

To count these traditions among the "musical" sources of blues and jazz seems justified if one takes into account that the oral tales have always been firmly rooted in the context of communal events of antiphonic performances.

Her "call" in the Clearing adheres to the typical features of antiphonic sermonizing.

The themes and motives examined are those which have been studied by critics--the relation to the past, the uses of myth, love, passion, and possession, naming and unnaming, loss, violence and excess, stereotypes and taboos, cultural and biblical references, the dramatic role of the community, the body as text or jazz as metaphor for writing, the creation of voices, of antiphonic structure--but in her own explorations of these and many other aspects of Morrison's works, Raynaud offers new insights into the singularity of the writer's artistry and craft.

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